Twitter at Five: Bruce Arthur’s Five to Follow on #Twitter

In honour of Twitter’s upcoming fifth birthday, the Post is celebrating all (OK, most) things Twitter. (Behold, the first-ever tweet!)

In Five to Follow, a week-long web series, our columnists and other notable Twitter users pick five of their favourite tweeters. Below, Bruce Arthur. Follow him on Twitter here.

Before I joined Twitter, I hated Twitter. I hated the name, the verb (to Tweet), the notion that it seemed to be doing its level best to prove Shakespeare’s assessment of brevity wrong. 140 characters? It spoke of superficiality, of the way texting dumbs down the language, of the mindless chatter of a cloud of birds. The name, then, was perhaps appropriate.

Of course, that was before I Tweeted 36,132 times in just under 18 months. Yeah.

Stephen Strasburg's curveball just punched physics in the eye and stole its girlfriend.

For me, Twitter is two things. One, it’s the best way to know what’s happening, and to filter out what’s important about it. I don’t visit half the websites I used to regularly patrol, because the good stuff inevitably shows up in my feed. It’s like crowd-sourcing, except I get to pick the crowd. It’s a big Internet, but I catch most of what I want to catch.

Two, it’s the best way for me to let loose all the extra summary judgements, arguments, links, endorsements, condemnations, and half-baked jokes I have rattling around in my head. It’s way to interact with the people who read what I write, with colleagues, and occasionally with idiots. It’s a voice outside columns, outside the privacy-violating death of Facebook, outside of yelling out the window. I hated the notion of Twitter before I joined. Now it’s the most indispensable thing on the Internet.

So here are the five people I follow whom I deem most essential. Since I follow 855 people, this was a really tough call.

Chris Jones, Esquire @MySecondEmpire
The finest writer I know, he possesses enormous reserves of passion, thoughtfulness, and heart. His blog on writing, called Son of Bold Venture, is essential. So is following him.

Had to write a story for Esquire tonight about how I met Lee. You won't be surprised to learn I was dressed up as an enormous beaver.

Elliotte Friedman, Hockey Night in Canada @FriedgeHNIC
The most thoughtful hockey reporter in a nation of ’em, narrowly edging out @TSNBobMcKenzie. His weekly 30 Thoughts columns are the best columns in hockey.

Interesting: couple of coaches said PIT/NYI was first time in many years they thought a game "looked scary" in terms of intent to injure.

Sean McIndoe, National Post @DownGoesBrown
If you like hockey, and you like laughing, and you like laughing about hockey, then why on earth wouldn’t you be following Down Goes Brown? Capable of serious thoughts, too, which is always nice.

If you'd like to learn more about Daniel Alfredsson judging an oatmeal contest on CBC radio, google "three most boring things in the world".